Players, Please Board the Train

The moment it stuck, the doll went berserk like a malfunctioning machine, its limbs and head thrashing wildly, its jaw clacking open and shut with a sharp "click-click-click." But even as it flailed, it didn't abandon its murderous intent—the metal spikes in its hand flew at Xu Huo's face without restraint!

Xu Huo showed no mercy. He grabbed its head and twisted it clean off, then dismantled its limbs and tossed them to the ground.

By then, Xie Ling had already commanded a swarm of dolls to tackle the active ones, using them as target markers to pin them down. But this did nothing to turn the tide—more and more dolls were coming to life, scrambling over each other to lunge at them.

Xu Huo darted between the display cabinets, tearing apart seven or eight dolls in rapid succession, but he still hadn't found what he was looking for. Just as he was debating whether to retreat from the venue, a dull pounding sound suddenly came from the side wall. He immediately sidestepped away—the instant his foot shifted, several metal spikes punched through the wall and struck the spot where he'd just been standing!

Over the next few seconds, a row of dotted holes like dashed lines appeared across the wall as two mannequins smashed through together. They straightened their heads—which were hanging crookedly off their necks—then charged straight at Xu Huo. The metal spikes they held had morphed into the long steel needles from the Needle Mountain Therapy hall—a single one could pierce straight through two display cabinets!

And it wasn't just the cabinets. The dolls scrambling around were inevitably skewered together too, either through the head or the body. But even that didn't stop them. They simply ran around the display cabinets in chains, and when they got stuck in the aisles and couldn't move, they tore their own bodies free from the long steel needles—a sight both grotesque and terrifying.

"Yu Huo!" Xie Ling screamed.

Xu Huo's expression didn't change.

Since leaving the Wax Figure Hall, his first target had actually been the Doll Clothing Store.

Sun Museum City had no fewer than twenty venues. The illustration of the twin dolls seemed like characters from Xie Ling's story, but it actually matched the Doll Clothing Store venue. So this was most likely another mystery-solving venue—except there were no corpses here. Aside from the restless dolls and the "friendly neighbor" mannequins, nothing gave any clear leads.

The biggest difference between these dolls was that some had visible stitch marks on their bodies.

Of course, it could have just been a cost-cutting measure, like Liu Chengyi had said.

Xu Huo grabbed two dolls and stuffed them into his luggage compartment, then kicked aside the mannequins closing in on him to locate Xie Ling.

Xie Ling was already buried under a mountain of dolls. Several active dolls and a few mannequins were stabbing relentlessly into the pile with metal spikes and long steel needles—every so often, one would pull back with blood on the tip.

Xu Huo tore open the wall next to him and jumped into the Needle Mountain Therapy hall. At the same moment, Xie Ling burst out of the doll pile. When she saw him, her eyes lit up.

Xu Huo grabbed her and ran downstairs. But to his surprise, the situation in the Needle Mountain Therapy hall was no better. The mannequins inside had all come to life. Unlike the dolls, they were much more mobile—and they even had a "mutual destruction" option. They'd charge at players covered in steel needles, trying to embrace them.

By the time the two of them reached the first floor, Xiao Ling and the others were locked in a desperate fight with the mannequins. Long steel needles were everywhere—stuck in the door and walls—and they had all suffered some minor injuries.

"How are you still here?" Xie Ling blurted out in surprise.

They'd been running fast—they should have gotten out of the Doll Clothing Store first. There was no way they should have ended up in the Needle Mountain Therapy hall.

"You think we wanted to stay here?" Long Aotian knocked back a mannequin. "Take a look outside the door!"

Outside the door was a sea of dolls—big and small, all crammed against the glass. Their jaws clacked open and shut as they waved metal spikes like battle flags.

"See?" Long Aotian circled around to their side. "Even if we got out, they'd just chase us."

In fact, they hadn't managed to escape at all. They'd been completely blocked on the first floor. Same as Xu Huo, they'd smashed through the wall, hoping to escape through the therapy hall, but both sides were the same. The only advantage was that mannequins could enter the Doll Clothing Store, but dolls wouldn't enter the Needle Mountain Therapy hall.

The problem was, mannequins didn't stop moving just because they were dismantled, unlike dolls. They'd use the long steel needles to stitch themselves back together and stand up again.

"At this rate, all our strength is wasted," Xiao Ling said, watching the endless waves of mannequins. He hurled a toy car at the main entrance. "Road Killer!"

The toy car slammed into the front wall on cue, collapsing half of it. The dolls outside were buried in the rubble. Then the toy car burst out from under the debris, made a sharp U-turn on the street, aligned itself with the venue entrance, and rammed the collapsed wreckage—along with the pile of dolls—back toward the Doll Clothing Store's front door.

By the time Xu Huo and the others stepped out of the therapy hall, the little car was still relentlessly shoving dolls back into the clothing store, successfully blocking the store's entrance with a wall of them.

But before they could find a safe place to take shelter, a loud banging came from the Insane Prison. Standing on the street, they could see two mannequins crawling out onto the prison's roof from a distance. They scanned their surroundings like real people and quickly locked onto their targets.

The two mannequins pointed in Xu Huo's direction. Mannequins from the Mannequin Building and the prison venue started pouring out.

"Damn it, is this never going to end?!" Long Aotian looked around. "Head for the shops! The bigger the group, the bigger the target. I'm out. If we're lucky, see you tomorrow!"

With that, he dashed into a nearby shop and vanished from sight in seconds.

Xu Huo didn't abandon Xie Ling. He pulled her into a nearby store. Liu Chengyi had already run off like Long Aotian, but Xiao Ling and Yu Guangnan were still following them.

"There's a small storage room in here!" Xu Ruosi searched through the shop. "The walls are solid. If we close the door, it should be fine. Might even be able to last the night."

Xu Huo spotted mannequin silhouettes appearing at the far end of the street. His gaze flickered slightly. "I'll go up and take a look."

He put on the Invisibility Cloak and climbed onto the roof. First, he checked the Doll Clothing Store—the two connected venues on that side also had mannequins running out to search for people.

Looking at the layout of these venues, there were actually implicit story connections between each themed pavilion. For example, the mannequins in the Mannequin Building had numbers, and the Beheaded Cemetery had corresponding graves for them.

The Insane Prison and Needle Mountain Therapy seemed vastly different on the surface, but if you thought about it carefully, both venues actually had two factions—the victims and the tormentors—and the distinction was clear: the tormentors wore white clothes or white lab coats.

Most of the mannequins that had escaped were from the tormentor faction.

Still, whether the mannequins operated outside their venues didn't really mean anything. What was worth noting was the connection between the Doll Clothing Store and the other venues.

The mannequins had a life-and-death link. As for the dolls in the Doll Clothing Store, they seemed to correspond to the pregnant women in the Insane Prison.

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